Ministry of Agriculture &
Farmers Welfare
Doubling of Farmers Income
The efforts of the Government to double the income of farmers have yielded very positive results. In this regardGovernment had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee in April, 2016 to examine issues relating to “Doubling of Farmers Income ” and recommended strategies to achieve the same. The Committee submitted its final report in 14 volumes to the Government in September, 2018 containing the strategy for doubling of farmers’ income through various policies, reforms & programmes. To achieve the objective, the Committee identified following seven sources of income growth:-
- Increase in crop productivity
- Increase in livestock productivity
- Resource use efficiency – reduction in cost of production
- Increase in cropping intensity
- Diversification to high value agriculture
- Remunerative prices on farmers’ produce
- Shift of surplus manpower from farm to non-farm occupations
The premise of the strategy for doubling farmers income is based on the following primary principles:
- Increasing total output across the agricultural sub-sectors through realising higher productivity
- Rationalizing/reducing the cost of production
- Ensuring remunerative prices in the agricultural produce
- Effective risk management
- Adoption of sustainable technologies
As per the strategy, Government has adopted and implemented several policies, reforms, developmental programmes and schemes for achieving higher incomes for the farmers directly or indirectly. These include:
- Unprecedented enhancement in budget allocation
In the year 2015-16, the Budget allocation for Ministry of Agriculture & FW  was only Rs. 25460.51 crore. This has increased by more than 5.44 times to Rs. 1,38,550.93 crorein 2022-23.
- Income support to farmers through PM KISAN
Launch of PM-KISAN in 2019 -an income support scheme providing Rs. 6000 per year in 3 equal installments. More than Rs. 2 lakh crore has been released so far to approximately 11.3 crore eligible farmer families.
- Pradhan MantriFasalBimaYojana 
Six year - PMFBY was launched in 2016 addressing problems of high premium rates for farmers and reduction in sum insured due to capping. In past 6 Years of implementation – 38 crore farmer applications has been enrolled and over 11.73 crore  farmer applicants have received claims. During this period nearly Rs. 25,185 crore were paid by farmers as their share of premium against which claims of over Rs. 1,24,223 crore  have been paid to them. Thus for every 100 rupees of premium paid by farmers, they have received about Rs. 493 as claims.
- Institutional credit for agriculture sector
- Increased from Rs. 8.5 lakh crore in 2015-16 with a target to reach Rs. 18.5 lakh crore in 2022-23.
- Benefit of concessional institutional credit through KCC at 4% interest per annum has also now been extended to Animal Husbandry and Fisheries farmers for meeting their short-term working capital needs.
- A special drive has been undertaken since February 2020 to provide concessional institutional credit with focus on covering all PM-KISAN beneficiaries through Kisan Credit Cards . As on 11.11.2022, 376.97 lakh new KCC applications have been sanctioned with a sanctioned credit limit of Rs. 4,33,426 crore as part of the drive.
- Fixing of Minimum Support Price  at one-and-a half times the cost of production –
- Government has increased the MSP for all mandated Kharif, Rabi and other commercial crops with a return of at least 50 per cent over all India weighted average cost of production from 2018-19.
- MSP for Paddy  has increased to Rs. 2040 per quintal in 2022-23 from Rs. 1310 per quintal in 2013-14.
- MSP for Wheat increased from Rs. 1400 per quintal in 2013-14 to Rs. 2125 per quintal in 2022-23.
- Promotion of organic farming in the country
- ParamparagatKrishiVikasYojana  was initiated in 2015-16 to promote organic farming in the country. 32384 clusters have been formed and an area of 6.53 lakh hectare has been covered benefitting 16.19 lakh farmers. In addition, Under NamamiGangeProgramme123620 hectare area covered and under natural farming 4.09 lakh hectare area covered. Farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand have taken-up organic farming on either side of the river Ganga to control river water pollution as well as to fetch additional income to farmers.
- Government also proposes to promote sustainable natural farming systems through the scheme BhartiyaPrakratikKrishiPadhati . The proposed scheme aims at cutting down cost of cultivation, enhancing farmer’s income and ensuring resource conservation and, safe and healthy soils, environment and food.
- Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North East Region  has been launched. 379 Farmer Producer Companies have been formed comprising of 189039 farmers and covering 172966 hectare area.
- Per Drop More Crop
Per Drop More Crop  scheme was launched in the year 2015-16 which aims to increase water use efficiency, reducing cost of inputs and increasing productivity at the farm level through Micro Irrigation technologies i.e. drip and sprinkler irrigation systems. So far, an area of 69.55 lakh hectare has been covered under Micro irrigation through the PDMC scheme from the year 2015-16.
- Micro Irrigation Fund
A Micro Irrigation Fund of initial corpus Rs 5000 crore has been created with NABARD. In the Budget Announcement for 2021-22, the corpus of the fund is to be increased to Rs.10000 crores. Projects worth Rs 4710.96 crore covering 17.09 lakh hectares have been approved.
- Promotion of Farmer Producer Organisations 
- To bring scales of economy to agricultural operations a new Central Sector Scheme for Formation & Promotion of new 10,000 FPOs was launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister on 29th February, 2020 with budget outlay of Rs 6865 crore till 2027-28.
- As on 31.10.2022, 3855 no. of FPOshave beenregistered under new FPO scheme.
- A National Beekeeping and Honey Mission  has been launched in 2020 as part of the AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan to increase productivity of crops through pollination and increase in honey production as an additional source of income. Rs. 500 crore for the period 2020-2021 to 2022-2023 has been allocated for beekeeping sector. 114 projects for assistance of about Rs. 139.23 crores, approved/ sanctioned for funding under NBHM during 2020-21 & 2021-22 till date.
- Agricultural Mechanization
- mechanization is an extremely vital to modernize agriculture and reduce drudgery of farming operations. During the period from 2014-15 to March, 2022 an amount of Rs.5490.82 crore have been allocated for agricultural mechanization. 13,88,314 numbers of machines and equipments have been provided to farmers on subsidy basis. 18,824 custom hiring centers, 403 high-tech hubs and 16,791 farm machinery banks have been established to make available agricultural machines and equipments to the farmers on rental basis. During the current year i.e. 2022-23, so far an amount of Rs. 504.43 crores have been released for distribution of around 65302 machines on subsidy, establishment of 2804 CHCs, 12 Hi-tech hubs and 1260 Village Level Farm Machinery Banks.
- Providing Soil Health Cards to farmers
Soil Health Card Scheme was introduced in the year 2014-15 to optimize usage of nutrients. The following numbers of cards have been issued to farmers;
- Cycle-I  – 10.74 crore
- Cycle-II - 11.97 crore
- Model Village Programme - 19.64 lakh
- Setting up of National Agriculture Market  extension Platform
- 1260 mandis of 22 States and 03 UTs have been integrated to e-NAM platform.
- As on 31.10.2022, more than 1.74 crore Farmers & 2.36 Lakh traders have been registered on e-NAM portal.
- Total volume of 6.5 crore MT & 19.24 crore numbers  collectively worth approximately Rs. 2.22 lakh crore of trade has been recorded on e-NAM platform as on 31.10.2022.
14. Launch of the National Mission for Edible Oils – Oil Palm - NMEO has been approved with a total outlay of Rs 11,040 crore. This will bring an additional area of 6.5 lakh hectare under Oil Palm plantation with 3.28 lakh hectare in the north-eastern states and 3.22 lakh hectare in the rest of India in the next 5 years. The major focus of the Mission is to provide Viability Prices of fresh fruit bunches  to the farmers linked with assured procurement by industry with a simpler price fixing formula. The Central Government will compensate farmers through a viability gap payment if price paid by industry is below the viability price upto October, 2037.
- Agri Infrastructure Fund 
Since inception of AIF in the year 2020, the scheme has sanctioned an amount of Rs.13681 crore worth agriculture infrastructure in the country for more than 18133 projects. With the support of the scheme, various agriculture infrastructures were created and some of the infrastructure are at the final stage of completion. These infrastructures include 8076 warehouses, 2788 primary processing units, 1860 custom hiring centres, 937 sorting & grading units, 696 cold store projects, 163 assaying units and around 3613 other kinds of post-harvest management projects and community farming assets.
- Improvement in farm produce logistics, Introduction of Kisan Rail.
Kisan Rail has been launched by Ministry of Railways to exclusively cater to movement of perishable agrihorti commodities. First Kisan Rail was started in July 2020. Till 31st October, 2022, 2359 services on 167 routes have been operated.
- MIDH - Cluster Development Programme:
The Cluster Development Programme  is designed to leverage geographical specialisation of horticulture clusters and promote integrated and market-led development of pre-production, production, post-harvest, logistics, branding, and marketing activities. DA&FW has identified 55 horticulture clusters, of which 12 have been selected for the pilot phase of the CDP.
- Creation of a Start-up Eco system in agriculture and allied sector
So far, 1055 Startups during FY 2019-20 to 2022-23 have been finally selected by different knowledge partners and agribusiness incubators of DA&FW. A total of Rs. 6317.91 lakhs grants-in-aidhas been released for funding to these Startups to the respective Knowledge Partners  & RKVY RAFTAAR Agri Business Incubator  as grants-in-aid support by DA&FW.
19. Achievement in Export of Agri and Allied Agri- Commodities
The country has witnessed emphatic growth in export of agri and allied commodities. As compared to the year 2015-16, the Agri and allied export has increased from 32.81 billion USD in 2015-16 to 50.24 billion USD in 2021-22 i.e. an increase of 53.1%.
In the above context, it is stated that the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation [National Statistical Office ] conducted a Situation Assessment Survey  of Agricultural Households during NSS 70th round  with reference to the agricultural year July 2012- June 2013 and during NSS 77th round  with reference to the agricultural year July 2018- June 2019 in the rural areas of the country. From these surveys, estimated average monthly income per agricultural household as obtained from NSS 70th round  and NSS 77th round  were calculated as Rs.6426/- and Rs.10,218/- respectively.
The efforts of Government at positive implementation of these schemes have yielded remarkable results towards augmenting the income of the farmers. As part of the ‘AzadikaAmritMahotsav’, Indian Council of Agricultural Research  has released a book, which contains compilation of success stories of 75,000 farmers out of innumerable successful farmers who have increased their income more than two times.
This information was given by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.